HANGING YOUR INVESTMENTS ON THE WALL
ANCHOR, OFF-CAMERA, (ENGLISH) SAYING:
Why did we have a good year for art?
PETER GALBRAITH, DIRECTOR OF ANALYTICS, ARTNET, ON-CAMERA, (ENGLISH) SAYING:
Art’s had an interesting year. It’s actually been quite an interesting run from 2009. It roared back much faster than most financial markets. So the attention has really been on assets and asset classes which can outperform less stable markets like equities or Treasuries, things like that. So people have seen art as a safe haven.
ANCHOR, OFF-CAMERA, (ENGLISH) SAYING:
It’s sort of like being in a stock-picker’s market though, right? You have to pick your winners and losers. What were some of the better value pieces of art? What held up and actually appreciated?
PETER GALBRAITH, DIRECTOR OF ANALYTICS, ARTNET, ON-CAMERA, (ENGLISH) SAYING:
Absolutely, the art market is not one market in the same way that the financial markets are not one market. The art market is made up of many markets. So the important thing is to be educated when making a decision in the same that you would when buying a piece of real estate or something like that. The general trend for the past 5 to 10 years has really been more towards contemporary and away from impressionist and to a certain degree especially recently away from the modern market, more towards the contemporary market.
ANCHOR, OFF-CAMERA, (ENGLISH) SAYING:
And why is that?
PETER GALBRAITH, DIRECTOR OF ANALYTICS, ARTNET, ON-CAMERA, (ENGLISH) SAYING:
In large part because the impressionist markets- the impressionist artists have somewhat fallen out of favor. And also from a financial perspective, they don’t necessarily provide the greatest return on investment.
ANCHOR, OFF-CAMERA, (ENGLISH) SAYING:
So give me an example of some artists whose works are holding their value or kind of exceeding.
PETER GALBRAITH, DIRECTOR OF ANALYTICS, ARTNET, ON-CAMERA, (ENGLISH) SAYING:
So if you were to look at somebody like Picasso, recently a work sold for $41 million at Sotheby’s I believe, maybe just over $41 million. But it was purchased for $28 million in 2000. So that gives you, what, a 3.5%, somewhere around there year-on-year, which is fine. It’s a good investment over that period of time. It’s not stellar but it’s fine. Whereas, other artists like Richter have seen meteoric rises with works selling in the early 2000s for a couple of hundred thousand dollars. And recently, they’re selling for in excess of $20 million.